


Deep Sleep

by Sugercube75



Series: Tales Told In Silence [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, mentions character death, mute!Karkat Vantas, yanking IVs out of your arm is always a stupid idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1468669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sugercube75/pseuds/Sugercube75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone fought, the battle is over and some have died. In the aftermath Karkat feels a bit lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gilliganpantyhose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilliganpantyhose/gifts).



> Well it’s about time I got to finishing this series. Seriously though. Like one chapter for this part and then one other part and I'm done. This thing needs to be finished.

Karkat

When you start to feel the tug of consciousness it feels like when you’ve slipped under the sopor slime in your recuperacoon and wake up under the toxic goo. You feel surrounded by a thick sludge, not like sopor in its calming qualities, but you do feel restrained. Your head is woozy and you’re not really sure when or where you are. You can’t really see but it doesn’t seem to really matter all that much? The whole room looks like a blur of white and grey and a few tiny splashes of color. You think there are some green dots by all the grey but you aren’t too sure.

 

You’re head slowly gets clearer and things start putting themselves together. Such as, you are lying on your back in some sort of tank. You are breathing water even though the last time you checked you were definitely not a sea-dweller. You have some tubes attached to you, and finally, there is a loud beeping that might just drive you crazy if someone doesn’t shut it off soon. Deciding to focus on things other than the annoyingly bright white room and the irritating beeping you turn your attention to the tubes attached to your body. Left wrist, nose, right inside of your elbow, and then the thin tube in your mouth. Grinding your teeth on the tube in your mouth seems like a decent idea to your fuzzy brain, well until the water around you moves and starts to drain.

 

Huh? What’s going on? Where’s the water going? You look around and notice the figures gathering around your little tank home. When the water is fully drained the glass makes a ‘FSSH!’ noise and starts to move. Everything’s a little clearer now that the water is gone and your brain fuzz seems to dissipate a bit more, you start to recognize some faces.

 

“He’s awake!”

 

“What?”

 

“Karkat? Oh god, are you alright? I thought you’d never wake up!”

 

The noise is deafening and you instantly hiss and swipe at the voices. You notice stupid pink skin and long black hair and grey skin and short black hair and some blonde hair and it’s all too much, you try to sit up but a warm hand stops you and pushes you back down. All you want is to get away from the noise and light and all the commotion and curl up in a dark room.

 

“No, no, no, Karkat. You have to stay lying down! You’re still recovering. Sollux, is he ok? He looks weird.” That’s Jade, you decide. You’d recognize her voice anywhere. She sounds kind of like John but not really. Speaking of John, where was he? You didn’t recognize his voice. Why were you recovering? What were you recovering from? Why was Jade here? She was on the ship with John, not the meteor…

 

“Hith readingth are normal. The relaxantth are thill in hith body though tho he’th probably thill a little out of it.” Sollux. You’d never be able to forget that brain numbing lisping of his. “He jutht needth a little time to adjutht, he’ll be fine Jade.”

 

You hiss and look around woozily. The lights dim a little and you thank whoever did that. You notice Jade standing right beside you, Sollux by the grey machines by the bed/tube/whatever you’re in, and then Rose and Kanaya standing side-by-side a little ways from you, they both look worried though maybe Kanaya more-so. You tilt your head at the two and Kanaya rushes over.

 

You don’t really expect the lung-crushing hug. “I’m so glad you’re ok, Karkat.” Kanaya says into your hair. You don’t know what else to do but do your best hugging back with the needles and shit in your arm. You make note to rip them out the second you get the chance. “I don’t know what I’d do if we lost you too.”

 

You don’t really know what that means but it pulls more questions to the forefront of your mind and you really want to ask them, a thing that’s really impossible without either paper or a computer-esque device of some sort. When Kanaya pulls away Rose is back at her side rubbing her back. You reach forward and brush some tears from her eyes and give her a confused look. You’re not sure what’s going on but some shit went down and you’re not too pleased to have missed it. Whatever happened wasn’t good. You tap your fingers on your palm and give the girls a questioning look. Rose is the first to react.

 

“Oh yes, of course. Here, Karkat.” She doesn’t have to look far before finding a few scraps of paper, a clipboard and a pen. You take them gratefully and write the first thing that comes to mind.

 

‘WHAT THE GRUBLOVING FUCK HAPPENED?’

 

The three girls share a look of uncertainty, fear and sadness. You underline the question a few times and shove it into Jade’s face. “You don’t remember…? But how could you not…” Jade looks shocked and tears quickly come to her eyes, she looks over at the two other girls panicked, mouth gaping for an answer either of them could put there.

 

“There wath a fight, we won. Thome trollth died. Thome humanth died. You got hurt tho we brought you here, thith ith a recovery block in the lab. TZ found it a while ago. You’re ok now, KK.” Sollux, finally facing him from the machines.

 

‘WHAT HAPPENED EXACTLY? WHO DIED?’ You show the board to Sollux this time instead. He sighs and opens his mouth to answer but before he can more people rush into the room, three exactly. You recognize Dave and another blond with similar stupid shade, you assume him to be a spawn of Dave’s or something similar. And then standing beside Dave’s not-so-look-a-like, is John. You recognize him instantly.

 

You open your mouth to shout, hands ripping the tubes out of your body, iIgnoring the new pain in your arm. You have to get to him, hug him, touch him, kiss him. Anything. You need to know he’s real and here and safe from whatever happened. You’re out of the tube/bed/thing in a second and in the next you’re crushing John in your arms. He’s here and alive and ok. You’re here with him. You pull back and crush your lips together, John squeaks and it makes you furrow your brows when he doesn’t respond to the kiss. Then there are hands on your shoulders and pushing you back, John’s face is flushed and he looks so flustered and embarrassed and you barely register the shock on the two Strider’s faces.

 

“Um, I’m sorry chap, but I think you have me mistaken!” He laughs and your face falls. That’s not John. You step back and examine him closer. Of course this isn’t John, this person has a bigger build than John, more bulky muscular and less lean muscle, he’s tanner and his teeth are a little more fucked up. His eyes are green and his hair poofs up instead of down. You grab your clipboard and furiously scribble on it then shove it into the three newcomer’s faces before showing it to the rest of the room.

 

‘JOHN’ underlined several times and even bolded to the best of your abilities. When no one speaks up your expression goes from curious to confusion to anger. You settle back into the familiar rage that feels like forever since it’s been present in your body. ‘WHERE’S JOHN? ANSWER ME, NOW!’ You add onto the paper. It feels almost like suddenly no one can read your handwriting or even the language you’re writing. You throw the clipboard against the wall and Jade flinches. You feel like screaming. Why won’t they answer you?! Why are they keeping secrets from you? Keeping John from you?

 

“Calm down Karkat.” You whirl on the voice, Dave, and bare your teeth at him.

 

‘NO’ You scream voicelessly at him. You storm towards him, barely noticing how the other Strider pulls the John-look-a-like back and behind him. It makes you want to scream some more. Yanking Dave forward by his shirt you hiss and snap your teeth at him.

“Karkat stop!” Jade behind you shouts. You whirl on her and glare; threatening to advance on her next but she doesn’t look scared, she looks sad and tired. “Please calm down.” Dave pulls your hands off his shirt and you sort of just let your hands fall to your sides. You look at her pleadingly and she sighs. “John’s not here, Karkat. He’s gone.”

Your face contorts into confusion again and you jog to retrieve the clipboard. ‘WHERE IS HE THEN?’ When you show it to her she looks away, you can’t help but notice the tears on her face.

“He’s gone.” Jade answers again. “He died.” She hiccups.

Rage boils up again and you just can’t believe it. Oh no this isn’t happening; no this isn’t how it goes. You can hardly make your words legible anymore and it takes a bit longer for the rest of the people in the room to read them. ‘WHY? HOW? I DON’T *UNDERSTAND*! EXPLAIN!’

When someone finally speaks up, it’s Dave’s not-so-look-a-like, Dirk was his name apparently. He’s scratching the back of his head sadly as he starts with a story you can only vaguely remember. You’d arrived at the new universe and shit instantly broke loose. A lot of shit. Jade went dog-crazy and died, Dirk’s friend also went crazy, the Condense showed up, Aranea went crazy, Gamzee was going crazy. Everyone was all looney. And to top it all off Lord Fugly Skull showed up. There was a battle, a long one. In the end Jade nearly stayed dead; she also brought another Green Skull back with her who apparently helped a ton, Roxy (Rose’s sorta-mom) did die, along with Aradia and Gamzee, you feel the slightest tinge of sadness hearing that he’s finally dead but it’s mostly swallowed whole by the anger you feel towards him. Your whole group almost didn’t make it out alive but Aradia helped. That also caused her “Heroic” death. You clench your teeth. Where were you during all of this?? Where were you when your friends needed you?!

‘I BARELY REMEMBER ANY OF THIS.’ You scribble the words down and show it to Dirk. He nods and seems to consider it for a few moments. The silence followed only further irritates you.

“You probably blocked it out.” Dirk supplies to you but it doesn’t solve any of your questions. Why? Why would you block it out? It was important! Your friends died! You should remember them! Remember them and how heroically they died! What a bullshit leader you were. You couldn’t even stand to honor the memory of your friends’ deaths. “You were fighting the Empress. And she nearly killed you, but John interfered and died. He gave you just the right moment to finish her off. John didn’t revive.”

You stare wide-eyed and still at him. What a blunt way of putting it. You remember bits and pieces of the fighting. Nearly dying. The Empress with her culling fork. Your fear. You remember pain, a ridiculous amount of pain. And then crying. You remember crying a lot. Then finally passing out and waking up here.

“...Are you ok there, Chap?” Not-John speaks up and you must look bad because when you look at him you’re suddenly swaying to the side and there’s a thud and footsteps and everything’s a big blur. There are arms around you and suddenly the floor’s gone again and you’re being carried. You don’t know who’s carrying you but you curl up and just start crying in their arms. You don’t even care anymore.

John’s dead.


End file.
